De Luchet’s Revelations

Illuminati of Bavaria 1

1 De Luchet’s Revelations

IntroductionIn 1785 and 1789, the attaché to Prussian Prince

Henry and the librarian at Hesse-Cassell — Jean-Pierre De Luchet — published two exposures of the Illuminati as plan-ning a revolution in France.

The first book was about Cagliostro specifically. The second was entitled Essai sur la secte des Illuminés. In the latter, De Luchet mentions the Wilhemsbad Congress one time as a source of the problem. This is what years later his employer — the Landgrave Karl von Hesse — would simi-larly reveal. Likely, De Luchet learned that secret from Karl von Hesse.

To protect the Landgrave and perhaps himself, both the 1785 and 1789 exposures by De Luchet were published anonymously. Previously, De Luchet was a reputable Enlight-enment writer known for his close friendship with Voltaire. De Luchet proved to be Voltaire’s most important follower. For example, De Luchet in 1780 preserved all of Voltaire’s works by publishing them in a six volume set.

To contain the exposures, Mirabeau took advantage of the fact that both the 1785 and 1789 exposures were anony-mous. He sought to revise and republish each work in repub-lications soon thereafter — the 1785 one during 1786 and the 1789 version was published during 1792, shortly after Mira-beau’s death.

By doing so, many people at the time commonly assumed that Mirabeau wrote the original anonymous 1785 and 1788-89 works. The purpose of Mirabeau’s ‘augmenta-tions’ and republications was to make the Illuminati appear to be quacks, and really another name for the harmless Rosicru-cian Order.

De Luchet’s Revelations


Mirabeau’s trickery fooled two right-wing critics of the Illuminati. Robison in his Proof of a Conspiracy in 1798 condemned De Luchet’s Essay on the Illuminati as filled with nonsense and absurdities. Barruel in his Memoires on Jaco-binism of 1798 similarly thought the Essai was worthless, and a misdirecion from a true exposure of the Illuminati. Mira-beau’s deception also has fooled a few modern scholars such as Billington who have not taken the time to tease out the publication sequence, and what was actually said by whom and in what order.

However, fortunately, with the aid of modern com-puter-based research tools (e.g., books.google.com), what was inaccessible to our ancestors is now accessible to us. We can find the original writings by De Luchet at google books. Then we can separate out the fiction Mirabeau created from what De Luchet truly wrote.

De Luchet’s revelations thus also have a very impor-tant secondary way of validating themselves other than their uncanny ‘prophetic’ nature and their link to Landgrave Karl von Hesse. The fact Mirabeau and other Illuminati such as Bode vigorously sought to undermine the Essai by deception and trickery itself is a way of knowing the Essai was valid. In the criminal law, when an accused assassinates a witness against him to cover up his own responsibility, then the jury can infer from such behavior alone (with no other evidence) that the accused is guilty of the charges.

Here, we will find Illuminati members attacking De Luchet’s revelations by either (a) creating false suggestions to discourage investigation or (b) publishing fraudulent revi-sions of the book so that the original book would look like it was frivolous and silly. Such behavior by the Illuminati bespeaks a consciousness that the allegation that they were plotting revolution in France was indeed true.

First, let’s turn to a biography of De Luchet to unde-stand the motives and goals of the true author of these expo-sures from 1785 and 1789.


De Luchet’s Biography

De Luchet’s BiographyIn 1785, Jean-Pierre-Louis de La Roche du Maine, the

Marquis De Luchet (1739-1792),1 was a prominent French-man born at Saintes. He was a calvary officer but resigned.2 In 1776, De Luchet had run a magazine at Laussanne, but when it soon failed thereafter, he moved to Berlin. This is where Frederick the Great ruled. Frederick had made Berlin one of the centers of the Enlightenment by inviting French Enlightenment writers like Voltaire to be courtisans.

While living in Berlin, De Luchet by 1788 had written over sixty books. He was a religious critic (1765),3 a cogent analyst of economics (1776),4 a science-writer (1779),5 an historian of mining in the new world (1789),6 a liberal novel-ist of a work regarded as “ingenious,”7 and a frequent jour-nalist.8 The Erfurt Encyclopedia says he was “one of the most informed writers of his time.”9 De Luchet was a “pro-lific author and protégé of Voltaire, was a truly international

1. His fully legal name by the time he died was Jean-Pierre-Louis de La Roche du Maine de Luchet.

2. Antoine Lilti, “Sociabilité et mondanité: Les hommes de lettres dans les salons parisiens au XVIIIe siècle,” French Historical Studies (2005) Vol. 28 No. 3 at 415-445.

3. His first work was Considérations politiques et historiques sur l’étab-lissement de la religion prétendue reformée en Angleterre (Paris, 1765).

4. Du Luchet in 1776 wrote Histoire de Messieurs (Paris), an analysis of two financiers in which he provided a history of the Regency finances from 1716 to 1726.

5. He wrote Essais sur la minéralogie et la métallurgie (Paris, 1779). 6. In the July-September 1789 edition of Allgemeine Literatur-zeitung, it

includes on page 88 a notice of a new work from July 1789 in German written by “Marquis de Luchet.” It was entitled Werk vom Bergbau. Eine Vertheidigung des amerikanifchen Bergbaues in Mexico und Peru. This translates roughly as Work on Mining. A Review of Ameri-cans Mining in Mexico and Peru.



figure, [and] member of the academies of Marseille and Bolo-gna.”10 In 1788, he was put in the national biography of the “great men” of France, and was described as follows:

Luchet (Marquis, formerly marquis de La Roche du Maine). Sixty books of verse and prose characterize this illustrious writer. He has resisted nothing: poems, dramas, novels, operas, songs, history, all [forms of] litera-ture....Tired of applause from his homeland, he brought her glory in Germany.11

However, some who disliked him called De Luchet “a philosopher proper, or Voltairian infidel.”12

7. In 1784, he wrote the novel Le vicomte de Barjac,ou memoires pour servir a l'histoire de ce siecle (Dublin & Paris, 1784). In a review, it spoke of the “ingenious author of Victomte de Barjac, de M. le Mar-quis de Luchet.” (Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique par Grimm, Diderot, etc. (Paris: Garnier, 1881) Vol. 15 at 120.)

8. His works reprinted/summarized in liberal journals included Une seule Faute : ou les mémoires d'une Demoiselle de qualité (London/Paris 1788), synopsized/given notice in Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung Vol. 4 No. 338 (1788).

9. “Luchet, Jean Pierre Louis de,” Erfurt-web.de (the Erfurt encyclope-dia) http://www.erfurt-web.de/Jahr1778 (accessed 12/11/08).

10.Susanne Schulz-Falste, “Rare Books,” http://www.schulz-falster.com/fairs/fair19.pdf (accessed 12/11/08).

11.Antoine Rivarol, Le Petit almanach de nos grands hommes (1788), quoted in Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique par Grimm, Diderot, etc. (Paris: Garnier, 1881) Vol. 15 at 216.

12.The British Magazine (ed. Hugh James Ross) Vol. XIX (March 1841) at 321 (the “author” of the “Essai sur la secte des Illuminés” “was a philisophe proper, or Voltairian infidel.”)


De Luchet’s Government Position in Prussia & Mirabeau’s Betrayal

De Luchet’s Government Position in Prussia & Mirabeau’s Betrayal

De Luchet also circulated often in the halls of Prus-sian government at Berlin. His friends included Prince Henry of Prussia, Mauvillon, and the foremost Berlin publisher of Enlightenment writers — Friedrich Nicolai (1733-1811). (Nicolai later wrote a book in 1788 defending his member-ship in the Bavarian Illuminati since January 1782.)13

It was in this Berlin period that De Luchet said he joined the Illuminati.

Importantly, in late 1786 Mirabeau (1749-1791) went from France to Berlin.

This is the same Mirabeau who led the opening scenes of the French Revolution of 1789. Walter Scott called Mira-beau the “volcano” of the revolution. “Through his oratory he rapidly became one of the most influential leaders of the [French] Revolution [of 1789]....”14 Had more propitious

13.F. Nicolai, Öffentliche Erklärung über seine geheime Verbindung mit dem Illuminatenorden (Berlin: Stettin, 1788)(available at books.goo-gle.com.) Nicolai opens with a certificate from Weishaupt dated Janu-ary 25, 1782 in Latin: “Nicolai, is one of the Illuminati Order, and we are contented in this.” (Id., at 3.) Nicolai then defends the Original Writings of the Illuminati seized by the Bavarian government.

Nicolai is now recognized once again as “one of the main representatives of the German Enlightenment,” but for a long time his reputation was besmirched due to a feud he had with Goethe and Schiller. Nicolai opposed their Romanticism movement on the ground it was anti-ratio-nalistic. Nicolai both opposed emotionalism in fiction, and stressed total objectivity in non-fiction — the latter being an innovation ahead of its time. During his long life, he held to the “firm belief in progress through the power of reason.” To which Goethe, Schiller and others responded by claiming Nicolai represented “soulless rationalism.” (See Sheila Dickson’s article in Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850 (ed. Christopher John Murray)(N.Y.: 2004) Vol. 2 at 805-806.)

14.Clare A. Simmons, Eyes Across the Channel (The Netherlands: Har-wood Academic Publishers, 2000) at 72.



moments followed, the crowds outside the Hotel de Ville in October 1789 were shouting for Mirabeau to be “successor” to the king.15 But it was not yet the time.

Yet, back in 1786, Mirabeau, the journalist, was on a secret mission assigned to him by a French Minister in the foreign affairs office — Talleyrand. The mission was urged upon Talleyrand by wealthy bankers. However, in 1788, Mirabeau transgressed many boundaries. He had published a book disclosing private diplomatic correspondence. It also simultaneously painted Prince Henry of Prussia as a fool.

De Luchet was tasked to go to Paris and dress down Mirabeau in front of the persons who sent him on this mission to Berlin.

In 1788, De Luchet was the official attaché of the same Prince Henry who Mirabeau made look ridiculous. On his behalf, De Luchet went to Paris in February 1789. In French ministry papers only revealed in 1900, we learn De Luchet in February met at Paris with Mirabeau and others associated with the French minister (Talleyrand). At this Feb-ruary 1789 meeting, De Luchet had a six hour discussion with Mirabeau and these other influential parties in Talleyrand’s circle. They reviewed Mirabeau’s mission at Berlin. The focus was on the embarassment caused by Mirabeau’s recent indiscreet publication of diplomatic correspondence with Prussia.16

15.Gouverneur Morris, A Diary of the French Revolution (1939) at 242 (entry October 4, 1789).

16.Henri Welschinger, La Mission Secrete de Mirabeau A Berlin, 1786-1787; d’apres les documents originaux des Archives des Affaires d’etrangeres, avec introduction et notes (Paris: Plon, Nourrit et Cie. 1900) at 66, 74, 80. He relates: “Mirabeau...arrived at Paris the 21st of February [1789]. He was seen in secret by Panchaud, Lauzun, le mar-quis de Luchet, and Dupont de Nemours.” Id., at 66. “The Marquis de Luchet [was] then the attaché to that prince [i.e., Henry of Prussia]....” Id., at 74.


De Luchet’s Link to Landgrave Karl von Hesse

This embarassment caused by Mirabeau’s low ethics may have been what soured De Luchet on the Illuminati. Welschinger, a specialist on this period of Mirabeau’s mission to Berlin, tells us of the likelihood that Mirabeau had joined the Illuminati at Berlin:

It appears that during his stay in Prussia, Mira-beau had been initiated into the mysteries of the sect of the Illumati directed by Weisliaupt and that upon his return to France, he was introduced within a lodge that belonged to those who practiced these mysteries....Later, Amelius Bode, successor to Weishaupt, and the Baron Busch worked a union between Ger-man Illuminism and French Freemasonry.17

Thus, what seems to have transpired is De Luchet in 1789 knew Mirabeau was an Illuminatus. And he disliked the profiteering nature of Mirabeau’s betrayal of his friend Prince Henry. At the same time, De Luchet already had a poor view of the Illuminati due to Cagliostro. Hence, in early 1789, while De Luchet is back in Paris dealing with Mirabeau, it was obviously the perfect time for De Luchet to complete his manuscript of 127 pages on the Illuminati. This became the first version of the Essai of 1789.


Prior to joining the Illuminati, in 1775 De Luchet went to work for the Landgrave Karl von Hesse (a fact whose significance will appear later) as librarian in Hesse-Cassell.

17.Welschinger, id., at 40 fn. 1.



De Luchet’s job included acting as head of the city-states’s theater and orchestra.18 He received this job on the recom-mendation of Voltaire.19

What is helpful to understand De Luchet’s purpose in exposing the Illuminati is to recognize De Luchet’s connec-tion to his good friend Voltaire. In Europe of that era, there was no greater skeptic, atheist and ocassional deist of literary fame than Voltaire. De Luchet turned out to be Voltaire’s greatest pupil as well as the person most responsible for pre-serving all of the works of Voltaire by publishing them in one multi-volume set.

Illustrative of their closeness, in 1778, upon the death of Voltaire, De Luchet wrote a pamphlet containing a eulogy of Voltaire. It was published in De Luchet’s capacity as the Perpetual Secretary of the Alterthurmer Society of Cassell in the landgrave of Hesse-Cassell.20

Similarly, in 1780, De Luchet released in six volumes at Cassell the entire literary history of Voltaire. See Jean Pierre Louis La Roche du Maine, Histoire litteraire de M. de Voltaire. (6 vols. Cassel, 1780.)21

Thus, due to De Luchet’s efforts, the writings of the most renown skeptic and influential atheist thinker perhaps to have ever lived was preserved. It is hard to believe De Luchet would devote so much of his life to Voltaire’s cause without sharing his religious and political sentiments.

18.“Luchet, Jean Pierre Louis de,” Erfurt-web.de (the Erfurt encyclope-dia) http://www.erfurt-web.de/Jahr1778 (accessed 12/11/08).


20.Eloge de Mr Arrouet de Voltaire,etc par Mr le Mis de Luchet,...secrétaire perpétuel de la Société des antiquaires de Cassel, lu à la séance publique du 15 août 1778.

21.William Raleigh Price, The Symbolism of Voltaire’s Novels (N.Y.: 1911) at 266 (citation). Price’s full text is accessible at http://www.archive.org/stream/symbolismofvolta00pricrich/symbolismofvolta00pricrich_djvu.txt (accessed 12/11/08).



As a consequence of De Luchet’s literary efforts, Prince Henry of Prussia in 1788 awarded him a life pension of 2,000 crowns.22

This background summarized above gives us an important insight into De Luchet’s political and religious out-looks.

De Luchet’s writings on the Illuminati confirm this, especially his Essai from 1789. In none of them does he ever express his motive is to attack atheism or liberalism or to defend Christianity. He does say at one point that “Christ” is out here, but in the Illuminati “the devil” is at work. This was more hyperbole than any expression of faith. In fact, the Essai appears to be written by a sincere liberal atheist or tepid deist. He might admire Jesus, but no defense of Christianity or the church ever appears. Despite this outlook, De Luchet was still appalled at what he learned as a member of the Illu-minati. De Luchet even balanced his attack on the Illuminati by making extensive attacks on the Jesuit Order within the Catholic Church in his famous Essai sur la Secte des Illu-minés.

Also, we can deduce the spirit of De Luchet’s expo-sure by recognizing his likely source for many details about the Illuminati in the Essai. In the 1780’s, De Luchet was still working for Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse Kassell as his State Librarian and Theater Director. The papers of the Illuminati from the period of the Wilhemsbad Congress in 1782 confirm that Karl von Hesse joined at that time.23 In 1821, Karl von Hesse claimed he was an Illuminatus who from 1783 onward operated as a secret double-agent inside the Illuminati, as we mentioned in the chapter on Wilhemsbad. Karl von Hesse thus likely encouraged De Luchet to publish the exposures on the Illuminati discussed in this chapter.


23.See “De Luchet’s Revelations” on page 1 et seq.



The First Exposure By De Luchet — 1785In 1785, De Luchet published his first exposure on the

Illuminati. It was an anonymous book entitled Mémoire authentique pour servir à l’histoire due comte de Cagliostro (Berlin: 1785).24 It was so favorably received that a second edition was issued in January 1786 and a third edition at Strasbourg.25

De Luchet revealed to the world something he thought would explain the Affair of the Necklace Trial at Paris — Cagliostro was an Illuminatus. (This was something Cagliostro would later admit in 1790.)26 De Luchet added that the Illuminati at Berlin were dangerous. Under anonym-ity, De Luchet said in this 1785 revelation that the Berlin Illu-minati were “from the Freemasons” and “made part and from its [the Bavarian Illuminati’s] principles.” He also said the Illuminati he encountered at Berlin “are more dangerous for

24.This is the title cited under De Luchet’s name by the Library of Con-gress in its National Union Catalogue—Pre-1956 Imprints (Mansell: 1974) Vol. 344 at 330.

Antiquarians identify De Luchet as the author in brackets, indicating it was originally written anonymously: “ [Luchet (Marquis de]. Mémoi-res authentiques pour servir à l'Histoire du Comte de Cagliostro. Sec-onde édition. Sans lieu,1785.” (http://www.liberlibri.com/catalogue90_28.htm (accessed 12/9/08).

Also, it was identified as De Luchet’s work in 1785 by the Allgemeine Lit-eratur-Zeitung Vol. 4 No. 290 (1785). (See http://zs.thulb.uni-jena.de/receive/jportal_jparticle_00055180?XSL.view.objectmetadata.SES-SION=false (accessed 12/9/08).

This is a well-respected journal that references many articles about or by De Luchet.

Neval mentions it too as De Luchet’s work. See Gerard de Neval, Les Illuminés, ou Les Precurseurs du Socialisme (Paris: Novelle Libraire de France, 1958) at 325 n. 1.

25.Constantin Photiades, Count Cagliostro (n.d.) at 212.26.See “Cagliostro’s Exposure” on page 1.


The First Exposure By De Luchet — 1785

Kings for they are by nature [seeking] to seduce the people and to excite rebellion,” and are willing to use “force” to institute their ideas.27

This 1785 book by De Luchet warned that Cagliostro was planning revolution in France. A synopsis by the Library of the Rhône Alps explains De Luchet’s remarkable predic-tion of the revolution four years in advance:

This is a pamphlet directed against Cagliostro and his wife, in reference to the Affair of the Necklace case. While a strong and licentious libel, it was full of very curious revelations where you can find a prediction of all the fury of the revolution predicted four years before-hand.28

27.Le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Baviére, supra, at 708 [emphasis added]. Le Forestier says he is quoting from Mirabeau’s work on Cagliostro which is a reply to De Luchet’s work. Mirabeau is apparently summa-rizing De Luchet. Mirabeau’s explanation will be, as discussed below, that these Illuminati are not the Bavarian Illuminati but Rosicrucians who are using that same name. This was simply disinformation because Mirabeau himself was secretly then an Illuminatus within the Bavarian system.

28.The site Lectura described as “la portail des bibliotèque des villes cen-tre de Rhône Alps” provides this synopsis: “Pamphlet dirigé contre Cagliostro et sa femme, où il est question de l’Affaire du Collier. Libelle fort licencieux, d’une grande curiosité, plein de révélations très curieuses où l’on trouve toutes les fureurs de la Révolution prédites à quatre ans de distance.” (http://www.lectura.fr/fr/cata-logues/resul-tats.cfm?reb=1&mode=cat&aut=La%20Roche%20%20Jean%20de (accessed 12/9/08).

Antiquarian sources have the same synopsis about a prophecy of revolu-tion, and cite several scholarly sources: Chateaubriand, Edition origi-nale des Notes sur la Grèce. (Talvart III-11, 30A) Caillet-6136; Fesch 871 ; Chomarat-232. See http://www.livre-rare-book.com/Matieres/jd/4976w.html (accessed 12/9/08).



By The Way: A Note About Cagliostro’s Isis Lodge Branch for Women

Weishaupt was the first to propose lodges should admit women into the secret society world. However, the first known lodge system to do this was operated by Cagliostro. De Luchet reported in 1785 that Cagliostro’s wife, Madame Cagliostro, at Lodge Isis on Rue de Sourdière in Paris initi-ated female members into a separate branch of Egyptian Freemasonry.29 This helps corroborate, whether De Luchet knew it or not, that Cagliostro learned from Weishaupt’s Order this rare idea of admitting women into a fraternal order.

Incidentally, but not without importance later, the influence of Cagliostro on the French Revolution is evident in the open use of Isis at the government-sponsored Festival of Reunion on August 10, 1793. (This was the one year anniver-sary of the August 10, 1792 revolution.) The ancient Egyp-tian festival worship of Isis, the main goddess of Egypt30 was similarly known as the “Festival of Reunion.” Hence there was no veil put over the fact this was a re-enactment of a pagan Isis worship from Egypt. In this ceremony in 1793, a statue of Isis was displayed as the centerpiece of this govern-ment-sponsored first year celebration of the revolution.31

29.Camille Aubaude, L’Egypte de Gérard de Nerval (2004) at 73, citing Mémoire authentique pour servir à l’histoire due comte de Cagliostro. See also Laurent Bricault, De Memphis à Rome (Poitiers 2000) at 154, 157.

30.“Isis was a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs....” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis (accessed 12/27/08).

31.“In this engraving of the Festival of Reunion or Unity of 10 August 1793, a female statue of Nature in the form of the Egyptian goddess Isis represents the regeneration of the French people. It sits on the site of the Bastille prison, whose fall signaled the beginning of the Revolu-tion. The engraving depicts the statue as made of stone, but in fact it was hastily constructed of papier mache. This engraving was printed in 1797 as part of a series of commemorative prints of events of the revo-lution.” http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/searchfr.php?func-tion=find&keyword=engraving#


Mirabeau’s 1785 Defense of Cagliostro

David planned out this event. Thus, Cagliostro’s impact is seen on the revolution of 1792 in that Egyptian-Isis worship was openly played out in a public event of 1793. For more discussion, see “Robespierre’s Intervention — August 1793 Festival of Reunion (Paganism Of Cagliostro Revived)” on page 18 et seq.

Mirabeau’s 1785 Defense of CagliostroMirabeau, apparently a Bavarian Illuminatus even as

of 1786, tried to deflect this attack on Cagliostro in his work on Cagliostro. Mirabeau’s work was released first at Berlin32 and then at Paris during 1786. The French edition was enti-tled Lettre du Comte de Mirabeau à sur M.M de Cagliostro et Lavater.33

In Mirabeau’s account, he says that Cagliostro had claimed to have discovered the philospher’s stone, and how to prolong life. However, due to the trial, “public sympathy embraces his defense.”34 Cagliostro is a “prodigious man, a benefactor of humanity, a philosopher, a wise mn....”35 Mira-beau says that the trial which acquitted Cagliostro was con-ducted fairly, and all forms of regularity were honored.36 Then ‘why should we “reproach the judges” for their ver-dict?’ he asks.37

32.Mirabeau. SCHREIBEN DES GRAFEN VON MIRABEAU AN *** DIE HERREN VON CAGLIOSTRO UND LAVATER BETREFFEND. (Berlin & Libau: Lagarde & Friedrich, 1786).

33.This is reprinted in Mirabeau Les Écrits (Eugene Fasquelle, Edi-tor)(Paris: 1911) VI at 363 et seq. (Available through books.google.)

34. Mirabeau Les Écrits (Eugene Fasquelle, Editor)(Paris: 1911) VI at 365.

35.Id.36.Id. at 366.37.Id. at 366.



After the verdict, Mirabeau said some made claims against Cagliostro such as Professor Meiners of Gottingen who said Cagliostro was the agent of the Jesuits.38 But this is an “absurd vision.”

This is the gist of his letter.Significantly, because other sources think otherwise,

Mirabeau never mentions De Luchet’s discussion of the Illu-minati in connection with Calgiostro.

Next, in this same small book, Mirabeau publishes a letter written about Lavater to Dr. Marcard of Hanover (a doctor who certified the effects of animal magnetism).

Mirabeau places Lavater among the charlatans who distract public leaders from more important matters.39 Mira-beau never says Lavater was an Illuminatus. Rather, Mira-beau moves on to then denounce the “monstrous folly” of “theists persecuting those who believe in tolerance,” and then says by contrast:

The Rosicrucians, the cabalists, les Illuminès, the alchemists found above protection and favor at Berlin under the reign of the wise Fred-erick the Great, the wise one and philosopher, where the Socinians even obtained a legal right to exits. 40

Thus, there is no foundation that Mirabeau spoke about the Illuminati in relation to Lavater, and there was utterly no mention of the Illuminati in relation to Cagliostro.

38.Id. at 367.39.Id. at 369.40.Id. at 370.


The Essay on the Illuminés of 1789

The Essay on the Illuminés of 1789In early 1789, De Luchet published anonymously the

Essai sur la secte des Illuminés.41 There was just one small hint originally that De Luchet wrote it.42 Several other edi-tions appeared in 1789. A German translation by the profes-sional translator J.M. Tschoppe appeared in 1790.43 To defelect this Tschoppe’s edition, Bode, the Illuminatus, pro-vided in 1790 his own translation with his comments designed to suggest De Luchet was not talking of the Bavar-ian Illuminati but the Avignon Illuminati.44

Then in 1792, two illegitimate French editions appeared under Mirabeau’s name which we shall later dicuss.

Within the Essai, De Luchet mentions starting on his book in 1782-1783. De Luchet also accidentally left a date in one passage which shows it was actually begun/partly written in 1786.45

41.However, Le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Baviere, supra, at 621 says a first edition was released at Berlin in 1788. However, I have never found such an edition in any bibliography.

42.De Luchet left some hint of his own identity. The very last “Note” in the book is an excerpt of an article that attacked the Spiritualism move-ment, an article that he cited as appearing in Mélanges Littéraires by “M. De Luchet.” See Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés (London: 1789) at 176.

43.J.M. Tschoppe used the pseudonym of J.M. Heinrich. The book’s title was Versuch über die Sekte der Illuminaten (Freiberg; Annaberg 1790). This translation and its true translator as J.M. Tschoppe is men-tioned in Allgemeine Literaturzeitur (Jan. 1791) Vol. 2 No. 164 at 501 (excerpted online at http://zs.thulb.uni-jena.de/receive/jportal_jparticle_00006482.) Copies of this are still maintained at the Berlin State Library and Goettingen University Library.

Tschoppe was a professional translator. He was the German translator in 1795-96 of the French work entitled Complete Works of Jacques Henri Bernardin St. Pierre — a botanist and poet — in 2 volumes.

44.See “Cagliostro’s Exposure” on page 1 et seq.



This book was meant primarily for the French people. In 1789, De Luchet reprinted the book four more times. The first two revisions of that year were published at Paris. Then one revision was made in London and then two more versions were published at Paris. Each successive version had more pages.46

The quotes below are primarily taken from the second printing outside Berlin, namely at London, a copy of which I retrieved from the University of Illinois Library. This London edition reputedly was printed in January 1789. Its publishing history and its internal statements point to a publication date of no later than April 1789.47 This date is based partly on the fact De Luchet is unaware in the London edition of any developments of post-April 1789 (e.g., the attack on Reveil-lon’s house at Paris, etc.). No mention is made of any of the revolutionary disturbances of 1789. Had they already occurred, De Luchet would surely have cited them as proof of his points.

The second version to which we will refer is available through books.google.come for free. It is the first edition at Paris in 1789, identified as the first by the fact the numbered pages are the fewest, extending only through page 117. This matches what the Library of Congress catalogue identifies as

45.Anon. [De Luchet], Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés (London 1789) at 55 (“I have re-read all I have written after six years on the Illuminati”). He refers to a Mr. “W . . .” assisting at Wilhemsbad “four years ago.” Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés, supra, at 2 n. 1. (This W was appar-ently Willermoz.) Since Wilhemsbad took place in 1782, this passage was written in 1786.

46.According to the catalogue of books in the Library of Congress sys-tem, De Luchet’s name appears for the following copies of Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés.[1] Paris 1789, 127 pp. [2] Paris 1789, 147 pp. [3] London 1789, 176 pp. [4] Paris 1789, 192 pp. [5.] Paris 1789, 256 pp. See National Union Catalogue Pre-1956 Imprints Vol. 344 (Mansell: 1974) at 329-330.

47.Anon. [Jean-Pierre Louis De La Roche du Main, Marquis de Luchet], Essai sur la secte des Illuminés (London: 1789).


Credibility of De Luchet

the first Paris edition if you include the preface in the page count.48 When citing to this, we will refer to as “Paris #1 1789” or the Paris first edition.

There is a another version which we will refer to. It too is also available from books.google.com for free. This is the 1789 edition at Paris with 192 pages. This matches the fourth version published at Paris. For those who are curious, books.google.com also has the last edition at Paris with 256 pages. Thus, of the five versions, we have obtained four of the five versions in print. But, here, we will primarily refer to three versions — [1] the very first Paris printing of 1789; [2] the London 1789 edition and [3] the 192 page Paris edition of 1789.

Credibility of De LuchetIn judging whether De Luchet was credible in the

Essai, it deserves note that De Luchet never mentions a mem-ber of the Illuminati by name in the 1789 London edition. (This is the version I have read cover-to-cover.) I also see such similar discretion exercised in all the editions published at books.google.com.

De Luchet does mention Pernetti, one of the leaders of the Illuminati of France, but he does not actually say that Per-netti is an Illuminatus.49

For example, in one passage, he refers to a Mr. “W . . .” an “honest man,” who De Luchet knew to have great “zeal for the House of the Illuminati.” De Luchet reveals then that “W . . . assisted at the Convent of Wilhems-bad.”50 This tells us, based on historical knowledge that is

48.See Footnote 46 on page 16.49.Essai, London edition, at 136. On the Illuminati of France under Per-

netti, see Appendix A in book five.50.Essai, London edition, at 2 n. 1.



only available from masonic historians, that this man must be J.B. Willermoz (1730-1824). He indeed was a zealot of the Illuminati.51 Yet, De Luchet referred to him only as Mr. “W . . .”

The question is why? Apparently, De Luchet chose to avoid creating public

embarrassment for members that he knew. De Luchet hon-ored a noble tradition of those days. He assumed that if an enterprise could be proven dubious to its members, the best way to lead them away was a discreet exposure. They would less likely dig in their heels and stay with the supposedly dubious group. The opposite approach would be a mean-spir-ited ‘exposure’ of all their names. De Luchet appears to have approached his task of launching a warning with good judg-ment and perspicacity, rather than allowing himself to become an unprincipled scandalizer of friends and honorable men.

De Luchet also claims direct personal knowledge of the Illuminati. He says that after “several years” in the Illumi-nati Order, “I was presented in the arena of an Academy amongst the most profound discussions, and it was then revealed to me the most strange secrets.”52 De Luchet never purports to be relying on secondary source books for his knowledge of the Illuminati. He never mentions the Bavarian government investigation of the Illuminati.53 De Luchet’s primary purpose is to reveal the secrets that he personally learned while in an Illuminati Academy (obviously at Berlin) or those secrets he learned from reliable brethren.

51.On Willermoz and the Bavarian Illuminati, see “The Wilhemsbad Con-ference of 1782” on page 1 et seq., and “Secret Societies in France As of 1782 — The Level of Illuminati Penetration Prior to Wilhemsbad” on page 1 et seq.

52.Essai, London edition, at xvi.


Credibility of De Luchet

Evidence Karl von Hesse Provided De Luchet Information

Also, several pieces of information that he mentions are so peculiarly available to his employer, the Landgrave Karl von Hesee that we can deduce Charles was one of his sources. And a very reliable source indeed! Karl von Hesse was the Illuminati’s “National of the North.” For example, Karl von Hesse is the only likely source of a passage in De Luchet’s work that exposes how all Illuminati northern lodges were interlocked and connected.54

Also, De Luchet reveals a familiarity with what tran-spired at Wilhemsbad which again was known only to a small circle which included his employer, Karl von Hesse. De Luchet writes: “For them [the Illuminati], the seances of the... Convent of Wilhemsbad, the night meetings at Berlin, are equally proper, to give courage to those called to execute the most dangerous projects.”55

53.We do know De Luchet is talking about the Bavarian Illuminati for several reasons. First, he refers to the Illuminati’s spread to Poland, Russia, and Germany, as well as France. Essai (London: 1789), supra, at xi, 48. He describes teachings, methods (cipher), and systems that we know from the Illuminati papers belonged to Weishaupt’s group. And, importantly, we can deduce his source of many secrets of the Illu-minati was Charles of Hesse — the Illuminati nephew of De Luchet’s employer. Charles in his memoirs said he worked inside the Illuminati of Weishaupt as a double-agent since 1783 to defeat its ambitions. For this, see further in text.

54.De Luchet tells us how the structure of the Illuminati was set up in northern Germany. He says: “This invisible chain [operates so] Frank-furt am Main instructs Mainz, Darmstadt, Neuweid, Cologne and Weimar. Weimar enlightens Kassel, Gottingen, Wetzlar, Brunswick, Gotha. Gotha brings the light to Erfort, Leipzig, Halle, Dresden and Desau. Desau takes charge of Torgau, Wittemberg, Melklenbourg, Ber-lin. Berlin communicates with Stettin, Breslau, Frankfort on the Oder. Frankfort takes control of Konigsberg, and all the towns of Prussia... [then leagues] with Mayence and Poland.” (Essai, London edition, suprai, at 48.

55.Essai, London edition, at 34 (emphasis added).



From whom did De Luchet learn such dangerous schemes were unleashed at Wilhemsbad? Obviously Karl von Hesse, the Vice-Chairman of the Convent, and self-appointed secret agent within the Illuminati. And Karl, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassell, paid De Luchet’s paycheck for his work as the Librarian of Hesse.

Another important key to knowing Karl von Hesse helped De Luchet is that De Luchet says the Illuminati had an alliance with the “Initiated Brothers of Asia” (Fréres Inities d’Asia) known in English as the Asiatic Brethren.56 Karl von Hesse was very active in the Asiatic Brethren. (Duke Ferdi-nand, a dedicated Illuminati member, headed the Asiatic Brethren through at least 1792). Thus, this secret about the Asiatic Brethren would be known to Karl von Hesse and he could pass it on to De Luchet.57

Consequently, a likely source for much of what we see in De Luchet’s book was from Karl von Hesse. Karl’s credibility is elsewhere established.58 Thus, De Luchet’s sources included one from the very upper hierarchy of the Illuminati — its National of the North.

De Luchet Solely Approaches This As A Liberal Atheist

De Luchet’s sole bias in this book is in favor of Vol-taire-liberalism. De Luchet in the Essai, severely attacked the Jesuits for creating a system of secrecy in their self-govern-ment which, he said, aimed at a “universal monarchy.” The

56.Essai, London edition, at 43, 147-49.57. For a discussion of the Asiatic Brethren, see “Secret Societies in

France As of 1782 — The Level of Illuminati Penetration Prior to Wil-hemsbad” on page 1 et seq.

58.See the chapter entitled “The Wilhemsbad Conference of 1782” on page 1 et seq.


De Luchet Solely Approaches This As A Liberal Atheist

Jesuits had been the target of Enlightenment liberals like Vol-taire for decades. De Luchet was the very close friend of Vol-taire, and here shares Voltaire’s similar concern about Jesuits. De Luchet then concludes that the Jesuits’ misuse of their priestly bonds provided a model for an even more dangerous organization, the Illuminati.59

Furthermore, De Luchet never mentions any particu-lar concern for Christianity or any religion. He cites no Bibli-cal passages. He appeals to us as an agnostic liberal, apparently even as an atheist. Such ideals explain why he sought to publish his 1778 eulogy of Voltaire. Instead of sup-porting religion per se, De Luchet is concerned about the Illu-minati plan to create intentionally a false religion based on bad principles. What that means for traditional religions De Luchet does not dwell upon. De Luchet explained a very sim-ple personal agenda. He says, “we must denounce to the nations the unhappiness which menaces them.”60 Elsewhere, he explains his purpose is to “unmask their [i.e., the Illumi-nati’s] artifices.”61 His book is solely devoted to that end. Thus, De Luchet’s reputation as a French enlightenment lib-eral journalist at Berlin is consistent with his approach and values expressed in the Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés.

Despite De Luchet’s excellent reputation and his fair-minded approach, masonic historians still attack De Luchet’s Essai as “odious,” and his “personage too.”62 Yet, they cite no reason for this opinion.

With that background on the author of the Essai, let us now examine De Luchet’s statements in depth.

59.Essai, London edition ,at 21-22, 27.60.Essai, London edition, at 32.61.Essai, London edition, at 41.62.Dictionnaire de la Franc-Maçonnerie (ed. Daniel Ligou) (Presses Uni-

versitaires de France, 1987) at 181.



De Luchet Opens the Door From the InsideDe Luchet begins:

Oh my citizen! Listen . . . to these alarms! We write you with very great courage; . . . why? because these men [of whom we speak] are truly the most violent. They prepare for danger and they will destroy the calm . . . . They will ridicule men who [uphold] social order.63

This explains why he chose anonymity. The Order would use violence or ridicule against those who betray its secrets.

De Luchet then warned the French nation that the danger from the Illuminati is “imminent” and elsewhere says that “an imminent danger menaces us.”64 He claimed he learned the Illuminati aimed to overthrow the Monarchy and the entire social system: “You ought to believe that the sect of Illuminati will necessarily destroy Royalty . . . , and it will not respect society either . . . [T]hey want to knock the feet right out from under Kings.”65 The Illuminati “feel that the most efficacious remedy is one grand convulsion that will give birth to a chain of events, which Kings will have no power to avoid.”66 It will be a “sudden revolution in favor of ignorance and incompetency.”67

De Luchet then warned that this plan for revolution in France would burst forth at any moment from Illuminati-con-trolled Freemason lodges. He revealed the Illuminati had forged a “dark association” with Freemasonry. This bond, he warned, will become “the forge of fire for kings, and the dis-

63.Essai, London edition, at vi.64.Essai, London edition, at vii, xix.65.Essai, London edition, at xviii.66.Essai, London edition, at xx.67.Essai, London edition, at 36.


De Luchet Opens the Door From the Inside

tillation of poison for humans.”68 De Luchet explained that this control was by artifice and fraud, so that Freemasons in general did not know who was pulling their strings. He describes that two of his Illuminé friends within a Freemason lodge of four to five hundred members under Illuminati supervision gave him this report. They said the lodge brothers were “ignorant of the goal” of the Illuminati. He concluded that rank-and-file masons were “dupes of the chiefs.”69 In effect, De Luchet was warning the Freemason brethren of France that they were imminently going to be manipulated to subvert their own land.

De Luchet Says Illuminati Reject Reason & Science

De Luchet next discloses what he regards as the true moral danger of the Illuminati. He states that the Illuminati “explain that the Bible supports their system, to found their own religion, and thus to fill their temples.” While “Jesus Christ plays a role out here, there [in their temple] the Devil. For [inside the Illuminati] reason is nullified, science is deemed useless, and experience is just a chimera.”70

Indeed, De Luchet was a man of science. It was a tough pill to swallow that scientists do not belong in a world of equality. Knigge in his Peter Clausen (1793) said men who work as scientists are banned in the ideal Tahiti-like world he describes. Marechal in 1793 in his Manifest des Egaux said that ‘all arts must end if they interfere with equality.’

Furthermore, if we recall the evidence from the Bavarian Court of Inquiry on the Illuminati, we know the Illuminés ridiculed science.

Clearly, this was a key irritation point for De Luchet: the world could no longer progress in order to achieve equal-ity, making ignorance a virtue. The Illuminati thought sci-

68.Essai, London edition, at xvii.69.Essai, London edition, at 35.70.Essai, London edition, at ix and x.



ence, as even Rousseau had taught, was a useless endeavor. Idealizing basic subsistance to keep all equally moderately happy supposedly required humanity to cease any creative endeavor that could create inequality.

Also, De Luchet said Pernetti (whom we indepen-dently know was an Illuminati leader of France), spread arti-cles that “demand of us Theosophy” — the eclectic combination of all religions.71 De Luchet described the Illu-minati’s purpose for creating this new religion was really to replace the prevailing faiths:

The system of the Illuminati is not to embrace the dogmas of one sect, but to bring together all errors, and to concentrate within itself all that man has invented which are cheats and impos-ture, so as to serve their thoughts and their interests, and to give to the spirit the cure of its passions.72

What De Luchet meant was that the Illuminati went back to ancient religions, such as those from Greece, Rome, Egypt, and India, and sought to reintroduce them evidently to undermine the prevailing Judeo-Christian faiths. They would revive these pagan ideas and inject them like a knock-out drug into modern culture. De Luchet explained the Illuminati plan “in France [was that] Theosophy will become with dif-ficulty a complete religion. [This doctrine] is itself very sad, very insignificant, [and hard] to make active in a people [i.e., the French] who retain still their habit of gaiety, and who resist such sad quarrels. . . .”73

71.[Marquis de Luchet], Essai sur la secte des Illuminés (London: 1789) (third reprint of 1789 with 176 pages), supra, at 135.

72.Essai, London edition, at 28.73.Essai, London edition, at xxi.



This concern mirrors De Luchet’s concerns expressed in his 1785 work on Cagliostro and the Illuminati. There De Luchet sought to alarm the public about a revived Isis wor-ship that Cagliostro, as an agent of the Illuminati, promoted at Paris. Cagliostro, whether at Weishaupt’s urging or not, was pushing a revived paganism as a means evidently to destroy contemporary religion. To a man such as De Luchet, just as it would be true for Voltaire, any revival of superstitious pagan-ism was a repulsive idea.

De Luchet Condemns Deceptive Tactics of Illuminati

De Luchet then describes the Illuminati’s teachings in general as “imposture” and the “plan of imposture.” “They play upon the cause of the People, by talking of virtue, of wisdom, etc.”74 He cites many examples.

One involves a strategy regarding women that simi-larly appears in Weishaupt’s seized papers. De Luchet says the Illuminati dupe women and make them “imagine that somehow they will recover the days of their lost innocence” by joining the Order.75 The Illuminati papers seized in Bavaria similarly show the Order intended to manipulate women with promises of emancipation. This way women could be used by the Order to control and influence men.

Why The Illuminati Were Succeeding

De Luchet attributed the success of the Illuminati to several factors. First, the members are stoked by “chimera [at once] extraordinary, incredible and unique.” In the hands of the leaders, the visionary ideals become real by the little appreciated “idea of the force of a coalition of men.” Second, the Illuminati had the good fortune of having speakers who had an “eloquence that creates an irresistible persuasion”

74.Essai, London edition, at xx, xxvii, 3.75.Essai, London edition, at xi.



among the members.76 The Illuminati made inroads by hav-ing speakers who knew how to use “a combination of wit and good naturedness, and [thus] they make a good many dupes.”77

Administrative Structure of the Illuminati

De Luchet also described the administrative structure of the Illuminati. The Illuminati were organized in “circles,” which, as we shall see, is an important trait by which to iden-tify later Illuminist societies. They divided Europe into prov-inces, which were ruled over by councils of nine persons. The membership list was known only to proven members. Also members corresponded with one another in “hieroglyphics unknown to the rest of the world.”78

How The Illuminati Avoid Detection

De Luchet alerted the public that the backgrounds of these men did not generally arouse suspicion. They were men “of simple exterior, and often are men of letters,” such as pro-fessors.79 As a result, their “acts pass in the darkness, while their grand priests are scandalously lost in the multitude.”80

De Luchet observed that the Illuminati avoided detec-tion by acting not “within a single town or province, but in the entire Realm.”81 Their scope of operations were thus so fantastic that it made people dubious of the Illuminati’s abil-

76.Essai, London edition, at 37-38.77.[Marquis de Luchet], Essai sur la secte des Illuminés (Paris: 1789)

(last reprint of 1789 with 256 pages) at x.78.Essai, London edition, at 39.79.Essai, London edition, at 39.80.Essai, London edition, at 37-38.81.Essai, London edition, at 40.



ity to concert their activity. Yet, the Illuminati pushed their movement forward, believing that “with fanaticism and trea-sures, they can change the face of the globe.”82

Illuminati Deflect Criticisms by Libels of Opponents

The Illuminati’s tactics, De Luchet explained, made way for their doctrines by “exercising upon [public] opinion by hypocritical denunciations of others for the most detest-able vices.”83 That is, the Illuminati libeled individuals whom they wanted to neutralize.

De Luchet continues, saying the Illuminati maintained a network for “secret espionage, which is constant, vigilant, and invincible.”84 They vigorously collected information about their enemies. And the Illuminati were learning of moves against them before such efforts could materialize. The Illuminati struck back at them from the dark. Opponents who were unaware of the Order’s existence could not defend themselves.

Illuminati Concentrate Social Power In Themelves

The Illuminati made a priority to seize power at every level of society, both in the private and public sectors. De Luchet said: “The Illuminati devours all — jobs, honor, fortune, government . . . .”85

De Luchet adds their goal is to surrounded the king with their members.86

82.Essai, London edition,at 41.83.Essai, London edition, at 42.84.Essai, London edition, at 43.85.[Marquis de Luchet], Essai sur la secte des Illuminés (Paris: 1789)

(last reprint of 1789 with 256 pages) at 37.86.Essai, London edition, at 43.



The Illuminati Create A New Man

Ultimately, De Luchet said the Order’s success depended upon the transformation of members into servile instruments of the Illuminati leaders. When we in a later vol-ume examine the Death Head Society (SS) of Germany, we find an uncanny similarity. The Illuminati strategy, De Luchet revealed, was to

by degrees, build up the human spirit by fanat-icism . . . [Then] the man it is destined to form . . . has an impenetrable character, little sensi-ble to public censure . . . [with] a heart of ice for his pleasures . . . an indifferent heart to sentiments of friendship . . . [A]bove all, he must abjure, in the hands of the Chiefs of the Illuminati, all principles that he received in his youth.87

The Illuminati would therefore produce the New Man, totally indifferent to traditional morality, totally immune from human feeling, and fixated on one mission. De Luchet, with far-sighted wisdom, then comments:

This man . . . is not the man of society, nor of nature; he is composed of the least estimable but rare things, and behold, when he comes into existence, he will be dangerous.88

De Luchet opines that these new men, “who, for what else can we say, have abjured humanity,. . . have become strangers to all that bonds and unites humanity.”89 De Luchet elaborated more on the long-term value of this indoctrination system. He explained that the Illuminati aimed at a thorough revolution of not just the political state, but also of the heart

87.Essai, London edition, at 46-47.88.Essai, London edition, at 46-47.89.Essai, London edition, at 54.



of man. De Luchet said the Illuminati “using the highest degree of imposture . . . has conceived the project of reigning over opinions, and to conquer not only realms and provinces, but also the human spirit.”90 The effect of an Illuminati rev-olution would be, on the human spirit, a total transformation.

De Luchet’s Most Famous Quote

The most famous passage of the Essai, and the one most often quoted, is a synopsis of many of De Luchet’s main points. He said in the Spring of 1789:

[P]assions interested in supporting the systems of the Illuminati . . . will never relinquish the authority they have acquired nor the treasure at their disposal . . . Deluded people . . . under-stand that there exists a conspiracy in favor of despotism and against liberty, of incompe-tency against talent, of vice against virtue, of ignorance against light! It was formed in the deepest darkness, a society of new beings, who know one another though they have never seen one another, who understand one another without explanation, who serve one another without friendship. This society aims at gov-erning the world, to appropriate the authority of sovereigns, to usurp their place, and leave it a sterile honor to wear a crown. It adopts the Jesuit regime, [to require] the blind obedience to regicidal principles of the seventeenth cen-tury; from the freemasons it takes the rituals and the exterior ceremonies; from the Tem-plars, the subterranean evocations and incredi-ble audacity. They employ discoveries of the physical sciences to impose on the multitudes little instruction, the fables that evoke curiosity and inspire callings. . . . All this error that

90.Essai, London edition, at 35.



afflicts the world, all its invention, serve the views of the Illuminati. Also the Banquets of [Animal] Magnetism, . . . sleepwalkers, the mysticism of the Dr. of Zurich [Lavater], . . . all equally serve their view; all suit its cause and become their instrument; they [even] reject nothing that they have in common with men who are outlaws. Its object is universal domi-nation [through] a series of calamities of which the end is lost in the darkness of time... a subterranean fire smoldering eternally and breaking forth periodically in violent and dev-astating explosions.91

De Luchet in this remark says the Illuminati strategy was to use a “series of calamities” and violent “explosions” to build bit-by-bit their dominion of the world. Each advance in liberty will be met by reactions of repression. Each repression will lead to responding revolution which in turn leads to the next advance in favor of liberty. The theory was that this per-petual provocation back-and-forth eventually must lead to liberty throughout the world.92

Had De Luchet agreed that the Illuminati cause was just, he would likely have found no fault with this theory of a dialetical back-and-forth series of progressive ‘calamities.’

In this point of view, then any battle in this revolution-ary crusade, even if lost, is truly not lost as long as some advance is made. Some soldies fall and die. But the cause is never truly lost.

91.De Luchet, Essai sur la secte des Illuminés (London: 1789), supra, at 33-34 (emphasis added). This same text appears at 43 et seq. of the last reprint of 1789 that has 256 pages.

92.Compare Robespierre’s words uttered on November 17, 1793 in the National Convention: “Les crimes de la tyrannie accélerènt les pro-grès de la liberté, et les progrès de le liberté muliplierent les crimes de la tyrannie . . . une réaction continuelle dont la violence progressive a opréré en peu d’armées l’ourvrage de plusiers siècles.” (Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (N.Y.: The Viking Press, 1965) at 42, quoting Oeuvres ed laponneraye (1840), Vol. III at 446).


Deflection of De Luchet’s Warning

De Luchet’s book was a devastating exposure of the Illuminati had it been taken seriously. Why wasn’t it? Did the Illuminati have anything to do with the fact its warnings were ignored?

Deflection of De Luchet’s WarningAs Weishaupt once said, “the indiscretion [and] impu-

dence of a single man can overthrow the best built build-ing.”93 De Luchet revealed all the dark secrets of the Order. The Illuminati scrambled to deflect it. These actions become a significant means today to confirm the truth of De Luchet’s statements. For only a guilty person worries about assassinat-ing a witness against him. An innocent person has no need to do so. In other words, the fact various old Illuminati aggres-sively sought to destroy this book by highly dishonest means proves that they were very concerned anyone would take De Luchet seriously. It hit too close to home.

Knigge’s Two-fold Deflection

The Illuminati first deflected this book with two immediate strokes.

First, Knigge, the Illuminati leader, wrote in a popular journal that Mirabeau wrote the Essai. Le Forestier says:

[A]n article of the Journal de Schleswig [ca. 1789], attributed to Philo Knigge [i.e., an Illu-minati leader], pretended ‘Mirabeau has made a frightful description of the Order of Illumi-nati [in the Essai],’ which was a fabricated

93.Abbé Barruel, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du Jacobinisme (Lon-don: 1797) and (Hambourg: 1798-99) (reprint Diffusion de la Pensée Française, 1973), II, at 31.



error and a ruse [by Knigge] to deter suspi-cion.94

The Illuminati anticipated that by attributing De Luchet’s book to Mirabeau they would immediately hurt the book’s reception. Mirabeau’s reputation was that of a scoundrel and yellow journalist. Knigge’s claim appeared plausible to the public because Mirabeau mentioned the Illu-minati at length in 1788 in his book On the Prussian Monar-chy. Mirabeau also had been in Berlin at the same time as the author of the Essai. By this ruse of Knigge, some soon believed the anonymous Essai was written by Mirabeau.95

Second and lastly, the Illuminati deflected this book by claiming that the anonymous author of the Essai sur . . . Les Illuminés was talking about a different order — the Rosicrucians. Knigge wrote an article claiming that the Illuminati of the Essai were not a branch of the Illuminati of Bavaria, but were a Rosicrucian order.96 This deflection has deceived some historians even of our era.97

Thus, Knigge and the Illuminati spread misleading information to control the damage caused by De Luchet’s work.

Phony Scandalized 1792 Editions Under Mirabeau’s Name

Finally, wishing to make the attribution to Mirabeau stick, the Illuminati fraudulently had De Luchet’s work reprinted under Mirabeau’s name after De Luchet’s and Mira-beau’s death. These fraudulent editions are known as the “third and fourth” editions of the Essai.98

94.Le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Baviére, supra, at 663-64.95.This confusion still appears in the Biblioteque Nationale Catalogue. It

shows under Mirabeau’s name a list of some of the 1789 editions of the Essai which it simultaneouly lists elsewhere under De Luchet’s name. This means that the librarians of the Biblioteque are themselves not 100% sure who wrote the anonymous 1789 editions of the Essai.

96.Le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Baviére, supra, at 663-64.



First, in 1792, De Luchet’s Essai was printed under the title page of Mirabeau’s Histoire Secrète de la Cour de Berlin. (This Histoire Secrète was a book which the French king ordered burned in 1789. After the revolution, it could now be safely released in France.)

More precisely, De Luchet’s Essai — the earliest ver-sion from 1789 which was 147 pages in length — was printed in 1792 as part-and-parcel of the third edition of Mirabeau’s third volume of his famous Histoire Secrète de la Cour de Berlin (orig. 1789).99 Because of Mirabeau’s death, the title page acknowledged this 1792 Essai was posthumous. The actual title of the 1792 edition of volume three was: “Histoire Secrete de la Cour de Berlin...Ouvrage Posthume. Tome troisieme. [et] Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés.”100

Google-books likewise identifies that “Vol. 3 has also a special title: Essai sur la secte des Illuminés [Jean Pierre Louis de la Roche du Maine, marquis de Luchet].”101 How-ever, the bracketed text was not in Mirabeaus’ title page. Rather, it represents google’s amendment to correctly identify the author of the Essai. De Luchet’s work was anonymous.

97.Vallentin is an example of an historian who was misled by this. When she discusses Esterno’s letter of 1790 to Vergennes, the prime minister of France, and where he mentions “Masonic Illuminati” at Berlin hav-ing power over the King of Prussia, she erroneously supposes that this is an order of Rosicrucians. See Vallentin, Mirabeau (1948), supra, at 246-47. As another example of error derived from Knigge’s ploy, the Freema-son historian Firminger says regarding Luchet’s Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés, that: “the sect which Luchet and Mirabeau attacked was, not the German rationalists who are more conveniently designated the Illuminati, but the pietist Rose-Crois companions, the Christian Tran-scendentalists known as Martinists, and the occultists who had reposed a confidence in Cagliostro.” Firminger, “The Romances of Robison and Barruel,” Ars Quator Coranatum, supra, at 41.

98.Albert Gallatin Mackey, An Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kin-dred Sciences (1912) at 454.



Thus, we can appreciate that the impression anyone reading the title page would walk away with in 1792 was that Mira-beau was the author of the Essai as well.

This has continued to fool many. To this day, book-sellers describe this 1792 work as follows: “Mirabeau décriv-ait la Secte des Illuminés de la Cour de Berlin...un ouvrage qui sentait trop le souffre ne pouvait qu'être brûlé !”102

This meant: “Mirabeau described the Sect of the Illu-minati at the Court of Berlin...a book that was felt would not suffer too much by being burned.”

Yet, this 1792 edition was a fraud. Even Mackey — the most renown Freemason historian — acknowledges the unauthorized editions of the Essai were printed after De Luchet’s death under Mirabeau’s name. As a consequence, Mackey notes that the public came to incorrectly believe the anonymous Essai was “[correctly] attributed to Mirabeau.” However, Mackey likewise agrees that the so-called ‘third’

99.Georg Franz Burkhard Kloss, M.D., Bibliographie der Freimaurerei und der mit ihr in Verbindung gesetzten (Frankfort am Maim, 1844) at 200 (“Essai sur la secte des Illuminés by Marquis de Luchet, librarian of Cassell. Paris 1789 256 [pp], 1789 192 [pp] 1789 147 [pp]. The last appeared under the title page of Histoire Secrète de la Cour de Berlin. Third volume. Third edition, 1792. Paris, 1822.”) (My translation.)

Non-masonic sources concur. A French catalog of books likewise notes De Luchet’s Essai on the Illuminati was “connected” to Mirabeau’s Histoire Secrete de la Cour de Berlin. See Comte de Nadaillac, Cata-logue d’une collection importante sur la révolution française (Paris 1885) at 175.

A German bookseller catalog states “within the third volume” of the His-toire Secrete by Mirabeau appears Essai sur la secte des Illuminés by Marquis de Luchet. It says this version is “rare.” (Joseph Baer, Lager-Catalog BUCHHÄNDLER UND ANTIQUARE [Bookseller’s cata-logues] (Frankfort am Maim, 1884) at 20.)

100. Friedrich Mossdorf, Encyclopädie der Freimaurerei (Leipzig 1824) Vol. II at 239.

101.This is under books.google.com ‘about’ section regarding volume 1 which it scanned of Mirabeau’s Histoire Secrete.

102.nouvellelibrairiebellanger.fr/catalogue_p/catalogue.asp.



edition of the Essai — the one “printed with the outer title of Histoire secrete de la Cour de Berlin (par Mirabeau)” — cer-tainly was “published without [De Luchet’s] consent.”103

The reasons are obvious. De Luchet was dead. He cer-tainly would not wish his first and shortest edition of only 147 pages would be circulated in 1792 rather than his much larger expansions later in 1789.

Next, at this juncture, the truth that De Luchet, not Mirabeau, wrote Essai obviously became well known enough that this fraud would not entirely work. Thus, a revised ver-sion was published but which with the evident purpose to confuse the public by making Mirabeau a co-author with De Luchet. Thus, in the same year of 1792, the so-called ‘fourth edition’ of the Essai appeared under its own separate title — Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés par M. de Lucheti, 3d edition, faite sur la seconde, revue et augmentée par M. de Mirabeau l’aine (Paris: Santus, 1792). I personally copied this title from the library listing in the catalog from the Biblioteque Nation-ale of Paris.104 This was reprinted in German in a translation by Hopp.105

The title itself reveals several interesting facts. It says that the Essai is by De Lucheti [sic] with “augmentations” by Mirabeau. Were these augmentations helpful? Literary critics from that era say this “augmented” version had anectotes which were “curious” but had “little credibility.”106

103.Mackey, id., at 454.104.See “Mirabeau, Gabriel Honoré,” Biblioteque National Catalogue

(Paris). However, other bibliographical sources leave out the “Luchetti” portion in the title. See, Antoine-Vincent Arnault, Antoine Jay, Etienne de Jouy, Biographie nouvelle des contemporains (Paris, 1823) Vol. 12 at 173 (it lists as works of Mirabeau “Essai sur la secte des Illuminés, 1789-1790, 3d edition, revue et augmentée par le comte de Mirabeau, 1792; ouvrage curieux, traduit en Allemand par Hopp;”)

105.See preceding Footnote 104 on page 35.



Thus, this augmented version of the Essai was dis-missed as incredible by thinking people of the time. This is evidence of why such a republication was even attempted. Such a reaction was precisely the goal of Mirabeau (or his posthumous friends) as a true Illuminatus. He poisoned the text by false anectotes to make the Illuminati subject appear silly and nonsensical.

Moreover, this title reveals several errors which bespeak unauthorized duplication, just as Mackey conceded that the ‘third edition’ published with the Secret History of Mirabeau was fraudulent.

First, the title misstates the name of its main author as Lucheti. Because “de Luchet” — the true author — is a French name, this error cannot be explained as a conversion to French spelling. Thus, the publisher of the Mirabeau-aug-mented version knowingly failed to reprint the original author’s correct name. This was likely to avoid a lawsuit.

Second, Mirabeau died in April 1791 and De Luchet in 1792. It is puzzling how to explain in 1792 Mirabeau could have been writing this augmentation with De Luchet’s con-sent. Other scholars note these incongruities.107

106.In the work by Joseph Michaud and Louis Gabriel Michaud entitled Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne (Paris 1820) Vol. 25 at 356, we read about “Essai sur la secte des Illuminés, 1789, 1790, 3d edition, revue et augmentée par le comte de Mirabeau, 1792.” They note: “it is a very interesting work that brings to the attention of sover-eigns the existence of a sect that appears to seek to annihilate civiliza-tion.” However, it has “curious anectodes, but they are hardly credible.”

107.Firminger, despite always being anxious to cover the Illuminati’s tracks, concedes the historian’s dilemma here. He points out the irony, “it was not until after Mirabeau’s death that his name appeared on the title-page of a third edition [of the Essay].” Firminger, “The Romances of Robison and Barruel,” supra, at 64 n. 1.



Analysis of the Mirabeau-based Deflection Efforts

Apparently, Mirabeau in 1789 agreed to undermine the De Luchet version printed in 1789 by printing a second edition with debaucheries and ludicrous revelations. When Mirabeau died suddenly in 1791 and the work was not yet complete, Mirabeau’s allies evidently continued the book and finished it for him posthumously. Mirabeau’s augmentations became identified as part of the Essai, including evidently debaucheries and inserts to make De Luchet appear a kook. This caused independent literary reviewers to pour ridicule on Luchet’s credibility. Mirabeau’s death simply did not deter the Illuminati. Only the Illuminati had any motive or capacity to use a member’s name in this manner.

Of course, as we could predict, there is something ter-ribly wrong with the text of Mirabeau’s versions of the Essai sur la secte des Illuminés. Mirabeau’s version so changed the original that it discredited and undermined the previous edi-tions of De Luchet. Many then assumed the earlier anony-mous versions belonged to Mirabeau and ignored the 1789 true editions.

Deflection Fools Robison & Other Illuminati Critics

As pointed out by R.M. Johnston, a famous and repu-table historian, Luchet “wrote the Essai sur la secte des Illu-minés that has been wrongly ascribed to Mirabeau.”108

However, the effort at deflection by attributing the Essai to Mirabeau, was successful in its era. Both of the most prominent voices on the right who criticized the Illuminati in 1798 were misled — John Robison and Barruel.

First, John Robison, in his book Proofs of A Conspir-acy published in 1798, when he mentions the Essai, casti-gates it has a thoroughly ridiculous book by Mirabeau. He said this despite the fact Robison was looking for evidence to

108.R.M. Johnston, “Mirabeau’s Secret Mission to Berlin,” The American Historical Review (Oct. 1900-July 1901) Vol. VI at 241.



prove the Illuminati were dangerous. Robison’s words dem-onstrate he was completely unaware that there was a version of the Essai not written by Mirabeau. Robison wrote in 1798:

[T]he Count Mirabeau . . . published an Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés, one of the strangest and most impudent performances that ever appeared. He there describes a sect existing in Germany, called the Illuminated, and says, that they are the most absurd and gross fanatics imaginable, waging war with every appearance of Reason, and maintaining the most ridicu-lous superstitions. He gives some account of these, and of their rituals, ceremonies, etc., as if he had seen them all. His sect is a confused mixture of Christian superstitions, Rosicrucian nonsense, and every thing that can raise con-tempt and hatred. But no such Society existed, and Mirabeau confided in his own powers of deception, in order to screen from observations those who were known to be Illuminati, and to hinder the rulers from attending to their real machinations, by means of this Ignis fatuus of his own brain. He knew perfectly that the Illu-minati were of a stamp diametrically opposite; for he was Illuminated by Mauvillon long before.109

109.John Robison, A.M., Proofs of a Conspiracy against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret meetings, of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies. (Fourth Edition) (Edin-burgh: Cadell, Davies & Creech, 1798) at 370-71.



These 1792 fraudulent editions of the Essai likewise fooled Barruel. He attributed the Essai solely to Mirabeau.110 As Webster notes, Barruel “denounced it,” and said it was “dust thrown in the eyes of the public.”111

In the 1920’s, Webster, unaware of the fraud by Mira-beau, examined the true editions of 1789. She could not fathom why Barruel dismissed De Luchet’s Essai. She says it “corroborated his [i.e., Barruel’s] own point of view,” but simultaneously she confessed it was impossible to explain why Mirabeau would “have ... appended [a copy of the Essai] to Mirabeau’s Histoire Secrète de la Cour de Berlin....”112 Webster’s mistake was assuming the Essai of Mirabeau was the same as the one written by De Luchet.

Example of Debauched Sections of Essai & How It Continues To Fool Modern Scholars

Mirabeau’s deliberate effort to substitute a different Essai for the first anonymous Essai worked very effectively.

The nature of the debauched sections are mentioned in various historical works.

For example, Moroni’s Encyclopedia in 1847 summa-rized the Essai sur la secte des Illuminés, attributing author-ship to Mirabeau. Moroni reported the Essai said that the Illuminati used human blood in their meetings as well as spoke to the spirits of the dead.113 These ‘revelations’

110.“Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés,” Bibliophilie Occultiste et Macon-nique (accessed 12/11/08)(“Souvent attribué à Mirabeau ou à Bar-ruel....”)

111.Nesta H. Webster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements (1924) at 241.

112.Nesta H. Webster, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements (1924) at 240-41

113.“Muratori or Liberi Muratori, Francs-Maçons, Frammassoni, Mas-soni, Illuminati,” Dizionario Di Erudizione: Storico-Ecclesiastico (Compiled by Caviere Gaetano Moroni) (Venice: Dalla Tipografia Emiliana, 1847), Vol. XLVII, at 63.



nowhere appear in De Luchet’s true Essai. They must come from one or both of the fraudulent editions of the Essai put under Mirabeau’s name in 1792.

One specific passage of the original Essai can be proven to have been changed to make De Luchet appear ridiculous. Unaware of the false alterations of the Essai, Bill-ington, an excellent and serious historian, relied apparently on a secondary source to conclude one passage in the Essai shows De Luchet had an “erotic imagination” about the Illu-minati's initiation ritual. He summarizes it:

Marks were made with blood on the prostrate nude body of the candidate. His testicles were bound by a pink and poppy-colored cordon; and he renounced all other human allegiances before five white-hooded phantoms with bloody banners after a ‘colossal figure’ appeared through a fire. Finally, the bands and marks were removed, and he was accepted into the higher order by drinking blood before seven black candles.114

Not surprisingly, Billington says this passage proves De Luchet is not worthy of being considered further.

By contrast, De Luchet’s real version of a similar ini-tiation (which we review below) does not mention the drink-ing of blood, or men appearing through a fire, or the specific references to a “pink and poppy-colored” ribbon used in the ceremony. These are obvious Mirabeau-inserts to make De Luchet look perverse and ridiculous.

Nevertheless, this does not mean the ceremony De Luchet describes in his true text lacks abnormal features. They are simply not so extreme as in the Mirabeau version. Yet, whose fault is it for some level of abnormal activity to have to be described? The fault for the strange nature of an initiation might belong to the group that he was examining. We will in a moment look at the true passage which Mirabeau obviously altered to exaggerate and make look silly. How-



ever, the point is that the true passage while having strange features was not so impossible that we would question the good sense of De Luchet.

The real passage of De Luchet’s appears in a chapter entitled “Of Proofs used to make an Illuminati Member of a Circle.” De Luchet says “I have received details from two masons of good character.” He says that these men became dumb “with a just horror at the aspect of the rules that the Order tried to impose upon them.”115 And one of these two men said to him that he was “very zealous, and very gullible, passing each degree, going from one illusion to the next illu-sion, from promises to promises, believing all along their maxims were real things....”116 This man then described to De Luchet a ceremony that appears quite odd.

114.Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men, supra, at 96. He cites “J.P. De Luchet, Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés, 1789, 2d ed., 73-76.” How-ever, Billington apparently borrowed this synopsis from another source, and thus did not read this original source himself. There are three reasons to say so.

First, De Luchet never puts the words ‘second edition’ on any version. This is evident to every reader by retrieving from books.google.com each available edition, including, as I checked myself, the 256 page version, and the editions ending on page 192 and 127 as well as the London edition I personally retrieved.

Second, there is no ceremony at all described on pages 73-76 of any ver-sion — which incidentally is identical from the shorted 1789 copy of 127 main pages to the last version which had 256 pages. Hence, the Essai is essentially augmented four times by De Luchet in 1789, but pages 73-76 never change. However, in none of them is there any men-tion on pages 73-76 of any initiation, contrary to the citation that Bill-ington made.

Hence, outside of Mirabeau’s corrupted version, nowhere do we find De Luchet’s true editions describing a similar ceremony where a candidate drinks human blood, a colossal figure appears through fire, or the other fantastic details which Billington quoted as if coming from the Essai. Billington’s citation is apparently second-hand, which was likely taken from Pierre Chevalier, Histoire de la franc-maçonnerie française 1725-1799 (Éd. Fayard, 1974) I, at 317.



However, contrast this with the wild, bizarre and impossible ceremony set forth in the Mirabeau version of the Essai, summarized by our Librarian of Congress, Billington:

[The] initiation is conducted in a large room, the floor and walls are covered in a black drape, strewn with [what appears as] a red flame, and a menacing snake. Three funeral lamps throw out light from time to time with a dying glimmer, and they let scarcely enough light to distinguish things within a dismal enclosure, [of what are supposedly] the debris of the dead . . . a heap of skeletal shapes . . . He receives a crucifix of copper of the length of two inches . . . [He is laid out on a table]. [First he is prepared by drinking] liquors which have already commenced a fatigue in him, and finally extinguish his senses . . . At least two men talk to him as Ministers of Death. Sus-pended on its neck [of the cross] are a kind of emulette, dressed in violet. [The candidate] is stripped of his clothes, and two brother ser-vants . . . trace upon his naked body a cross in blood, and a spirit is dressed in white, who then ties their testicles with a red string. In this state of suffering and humiliation, he sees approaching him . . . five phantoms armed with a sword, covered with sheets dripping in blood. [Then they lay him face down on the floor and they do likewise]. An hour passes . . . After this tiring test, . . . a large figure appears who puts a stake to his breast. At this scene, the five pros-trate men enter into unbearable convulsions... Then a trembling voice pierces from the roof, and makes a detestable sermon; but my pen

115.De Luchet, Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés (London: 1789), at 49.116.Id. at 50.



hesitates, and I believe scarcely capable of trac-ing them.117

De Luchet’s true depiction has reason and plausibility, while Mirabeau’s depiction is an impossible phantasm. Thus, clearly Mirabeau’s role as Illuminatus was to discredit De Luchet by rewriting the original passage while adding such phantastic stories. This worked, as Mirabeau’s version was taken then as it is today often as the true edition to evaluate De Luchet’s credibility if not his sanity.

Next, in the true Essai, De Luchet’s source told De Luchet the following oath was taken in this degree:

I here break all ties of the flesh that bind me to father, mother, brother, sisters, wife, relations, friends, mistresses, kings, chiefs, benefactors; in short, to every person to whom I have prom-ised faith, obedience, gratitude or service. I swear to reveal to the new chief whom I acknowledge everything that I shall have seen, done, read, heard, learned or discovered; and even to seek after and spy into things that might otherwise escape my notice. I swear to revere the Aqua Tofana [a subtle poison] as a certain, prompt, and necessary means of rid-ding the earth, by death or stupefaction, of those who revile the truth, or seek to wrest it from my hands.118

This oath is taken in front of seven black candles on a candelabra. After the oath, the candidate’s testicles are untied. The candidate then eats raisins. The ceremony is over. No fig-ure emerges from a fire. No one drinks blood. There is no pink and poppy-colored cordon on the man’s testicles. The

117.Id. at 49-52. This passage is identical, word-for-word, in the last ver-sion of the Essai for 1789, i.e., the 256 page version. The same text appears at pages 73-76.

118.De Luchet, Essai (176 pp.), supra, at 53-54.



five brothers are not described as hooded; rather, they wore sheets to look like spirits. The embellishments mentioned by Billington thus are not in De Luchet’s account, proving they must come from the Mirabeau disinformation version. These additions by Mirabeau to De Luchet’s story clearly were made to depict De Luchet as unbalanced and demented.

As the situation really stands, the original story of this ceremony which is indeed in De Luchet’s account, while strange, is not so strange as Mirabeau’s version of which Bill-ington provided a summary. De Luchet’s true version would never have caused anyone to categorically dismiss his report from his Masonic brothers. De Luchet showed superb judg-ment about what he did reveal. He anticipated our objection to the strangeness of what he in fact said. De Luchet explained why he believed these two brothers: “I attest to the honor, by Truth and Heaven, that what consists of these terri-ble sermons have been revealed by persons who were misled into the darkness of the Illuminati.”119 Nothing suggests that De Luchet was foolish in considering these reports. In fact, the ceremony he described is not so different from traditional masonic initiations which at the earliest degrees involve:• Partially stripping the candidate (opening the shirt to expose the

breast and lifting up one pant leg).• Faint candlelight to illuminate the lodge room.• Ceremonial wine to drink.• Supervising brethren, sometimes called the Brothers of Truth,

leading the candidate through tests, trials, and ending with an oath.

• Telling the candidate to kill a brother who is bound and gagged for allegedly violating the oath of the order. Blindfolded, the candidate must thrust the knife into the struggling gagged brother. Once done, the initiate finds that he has stabbed a lamb

119.[De Luchet], Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés (London: 1789), supra, at 53-54.


So Is De Luchet Reliable?

which was suddenly substituted for the oath-violator. To those who pass through this ritual, they refer to it as being hood-winked.

• Finally, putting the cold, hard tip of the sword to the candidate’s breast whereupon oaths of secrecy are taken, swearing to tear the entrails out of any brother who violates this oath.

These steps can be validated by reading Leo Tolstoy’s faithful re-enactment of a Masonic initiation in War and Peace. It combines most of these elements.120

So Is De Luchet Reliable?Thus, if occult groups do strange things as was earlier

reported by De Luchet (quoting others) about the Illuminati, why should we say De Luchet must be a discreditable lunatic for even reporting his brother Mason’s comparable revela-tion? De Luchet’s acceptance of what a brother Mason told him about such ceremonies, given the context and what we now know about such societies, does not make him crazy or to be distrusted. Rather, it should call into question the sensi-bility of those involved in such secret societies. We should not too readily discount the validity of the poor soul who feels compelled to tell us about something that he even recog-nizes is difficult to believe.

If we accept De Luchet’s report as true, then we can actually begin asking why the Illuminati used such rituals. Was it only a crazy eroticism that could be involved or some-thing else? Why did the Illuminati twist masonic initiations in

120.Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (orig. 1869) (Penguin: 1978) at 424 et seq. The fifth element (promise to kill a brother who betrays the Order) comes from a book written by Latocnaye somewhere between 1792 and 1798, and quoted by Robison, Proofs of a Conspiracy (1798), supra, at 223-24. For discussion of masonic initiations that Robison was familiar with in France prior to 1798, see id. at 2-3.



their higher degrees in this manner? The answer seems obvi-ous: the Illuminati were making the rituals more humiliating (tying of testicles). This is a serious explanation that fits the Illuminati’s scheme as revealed in their private papers. We need not find any erotic imagination in De Luchet.

Nevertheless, what Mirabeau added to De Luchet —men coming out of walls of fire, drinking blood, etc. — would seem crazy to a sane man. Mirabeau as an Illuminatus made these additions as an intentional ruse to make De Luchet appear totally gullible and ridiculous. Thus, Mirabeau and his Illuminati sought to discredit De Luchet’s work, not merely by attaching Mirabeau’s scandalous name to it, but also by reprinting it in a distorted fashion.

Hence, the later version of the Essai with editorial additions under Mirabeau’s name was certainly a desperate and intentional fabrication by the Illuminati.

When an accused concocts a wild and implausible alibi to defeat a charge or assassinates a potential witness, juries are instructed that an inference is proper to find a con-sciousness of guilt by the accused. It is common sense too. In fact, the cover-up and fraudulent republication of De Luchet’s book is perhaps the most convincing proof of the plan by the Illuminati to cause a revolution in France. Had De Luchet’s story been false and the Illuminati were truly a defunct orga-nization, then the Illuminati would have maintained their sup-posedly defunct status— and never sought to counter De Luchet. The truth is totally to the contrary, thereby pointing certainly to the Illuminati’s own self-conscious realization that they had been exposed and it was imperative to respond.

Other Fabrications

In another false insert, Mirabeau’s Essai made it appear that the Illuminati in De Luchet’s work were really the Rosicrucian Order. Le Forestier correctly perceived the situa-


So Is De Luchet Reliable?

tion: “It is true that Mirabeau had said very bad things about the Illuminati, but this was intended to refer to the Rosicru-cians, and this confusion was intentional.”121

Mirabeau added numerous elements that a reader would think the spooky and more mysterious Rosicrucians were involved. One writer, confusing Mirabeau’s ‘augmenta-tion’ with De Luchet’s original wrote that De Luchet’s “mem-oir” is “actually a hoax by Jean-Pierre-Louis de Luchet – [where he] described the eerie initiation in a roccoco grotto.”122 This is entirely based upon Mirabeau’s discredit-ing effort.

Mirabeau depicted the Illuminati of Berlin as the Rosicrucian Order whose Grand Master was the All-Wise Aristhrata. Mirabeau described their lodge hall at Berlin as having a candelabra with seven red tapers that shone under the Milky Way painted on the Temple ceiling. All around the lodge were wine vases, silver goblets, and incense burners. These symbols were often found in the harmless Order of Rosicrucians.

Manceron, a respected historian expert on the French Revolution, concludes that Mirabeau’s Essay on the Illumi-nati led one to believe that the Illuminati were “inoffensive screwballs.”123 Mirabeau, however, did not disclose that he was part of the Illuminati of Bavaria. And thus his effort at confusing the public was designed so no one would look at De Luchet’s true work with any credence.

121.Le Forestier, Les Illuminés de Baviere, supra, at 663.122.See http://www.forteantimes.com/features/profiles/499/

the_count_of_stgermain.html (accessed 12/11/08).123.Manceron, Age of the French Revolution Vol. IV, Toward The Brink,

1785-1787, supra, at 328.



Who Fabricated These 1792 Editions? Do we have any theory about who actually fabricated

the 1792 revision of the Essai? Based upon surviving corre-spondence, it was probably the work of the Illuminati’s clos-est allies at Paris — the Amis Reunis and the lodge’s Grand Master, Savalette de Lange. Savalette’s memoirs reveal that in 1791 (one year earlier), he wrote a brother at London, Gen-eral Rainsfort, to send him every paper he had received about the Masonic congresses at Paris. He also asked another brother to procure for the Amis Reunis archives some very odd materials. Savalette said that he needed “everything taken during the detention of Cagliostro at Rome besides the process of Octavio Capelli [N.B. an Illuminatus at Rome] who had a relationship with the Society of Avignon [i.e., the organization that openly operated as the Illuminati in France].”124

Both Cagliostro and Capelli had given the police at Rome much information about the Illuminati. Why was Savalette worried about getting all the memoirs back from a British brother about the previous Masonic congresses at Paris? And why was he collecting data on Cagliostro and Capelli at that time if not to prepare a rebuttal or some means of deflecting attention away from their exposures of the Illu-minati in France? It makes sense that in 1791 Savalette and his friends were part of a team putting together an effective revision of De Luchet’s book for publication at London. These were the same people who evidently republished at London in 1791 the Compendio which was the Roman police’s book on Cagliostro’s testimony with a Preface defending Cagliostro. As we saw elsewhere, the version translated and printed at Lononit deliberately deleted any ref-

124.“Salvalette de Lange,” Dictionnaire de la Franc-Maçonnerie (Ligou, ed.) (1987) at 1088.


The Essai and Karl von Hesse

erence to the Illuminati which appeared in the original Italian Compendio which the London edition purported to translate word-for-word.125

The Essai and Karl von HesseDe Luchet’s Essai also represents further corrobora-

tion of Karl von Hesse’s story in 1821 that he was a double-agent in the Illuminati from 1783 onward. As mentioned ear-lier, only Karl had access to the highly confidential informa-tion revealed by De Luchet. The three facts in this category which were revealed by De Luchet were:• What happened at Wilhemsbad.• That the Illuminati and Freemason leaders planned to overthrow

France. • And how the Illuminati lodges of northern Europe were orga-

nized (that is, specific cities organized in circles below which were other circles of cities, that directed other circles, and so on).

Karl von Hesse was in a unique position to know all three facts. Karl von Hesse said in his memoirs of 1821 that: (1) he was at Wilhemsbad; (2) he learned there of the plan to overthrow France; and (3) he was the Illuminati’s National of the North, which meant he was in charge of Illuminati lodges in northern Germany.126

Only someone of Karl von Hesse’s background could have known all three highly sensitive points that De Luchet referred to in the Essai. Someone of very high rank in the Illuminati had to be De Luchet’s source. At the time of the Essai, as well as the 1786 exposure of Cagliostro, De Luchet’s employer was Karl von Hesse. Moreover, con-

125.See Footnote 59 on page 33.126.See “The Wilhemsbad Conference of 1782” on page 1 et seq.



sistent with Karl’s beliefs, De Luchet never attacks the Free-masons nor even criticizes them; rather, he highly praises masons.127 De Luchet thus reflected the same thinking as Karl von Hesse regarding Freemasonry.

Upon more reflection, we realize again that Karl von Hesse did not wait until 1821 to try to expose the Illuminati in print. He must have worked with De Luchet to print the expo-sure of Cagliostro and the Illuminati in 1785 and then again in the Essai from 1788 to 1792. And, likewise, our confi-dence in the reliability of De Luchet’s work is enhanced by knowing his probable source was one so high up in the Illu-minati such as Karl von Hesse.

127.De Luchet wrote of Freemasonry in the Essai: “this institution, respectable since antiquity, because of its two fundamental bases, equality and charity” reasonably deserved toleration of governments. He said the Freemasons work for the “for the good . . . [but] I speak of English Freemasonry, and French [Freemasonry which is] non-eclec-tic, non-reformed, composed of men [who are] strangers to Chimera and occult science.” [Marquis de Luchet], Essai sur la secte des Illu-minés (Paris: 1789) (last reprint of 1789 with 256 pages) at 40-41.

Documents

De Luchet’s Revelations